


In Another Life

by scheherazade



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M, multiple AUs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-11
Updated: 2011-02-11
Packaged: 2017-12-14 07:00:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/834055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scheherazade/pseuds/scheherazade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In another life, they meet at a coffee shop on a Saturday evening in February. Clear, windy, thirty percent chance of rain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Another Life

In another life, they meet at a coffee shop on a Saturday evening in February. Clear, windy, thirty percent chance of rain.

Sami is waiting by the counter for his half-sweet cafe vanilla, contemplating all the ways in which Ethics is a complete and unrepentant bitch. Three days, two books, fifteen articles, and too few hours of sleep have gotten him no closer to coming up with a plausible thesis for this paper due on Wednesday. It's his own fault for procrastinating, he knows; but there's also no denying that Loew is a chess-playing, fact-checking, sock-to-tie-matching, anal-retentive disciplinarian of a professor.

In short, Sami has resigned himself to spending the rest of the evening going over his Aristotle. Again. For the ten millionth time. Maybe he should call Katrin—Katrina? Katarina? The blonde who keeps sidling up to him in the library and asking if he's going out tonight—and tell her to just give up already. _Sorry, babe. I'm taken. Committed to a long-term relationship with Ethics and Tragic Morality._

Maybe he should go for a bit more caffeine. 

He's pondering the possibility of sweet-talking Anna into giving him a free shot of espresso when he notices that the person handing him his drink isn't his favorite would-be-actress of a barista—isn't female, even. The boy in the dark-green apron gives him a strange look. Sami feels like he's missed a cue.

"You're the half-sweet vanilla, right?"

Sami looks at the cup sitting on the counter in front of him. "Oh. Right." He picks it up, belatedly. "Sorry, mind if I ask where's Anna?"

"She's out of town this week. I'm covering for her. Are you that friend of hers who's studying econ and philosophy in uni?"

"Yeah." Strangely, he finds himself erring on the side of flattered rather than creeped out. No harm in being optimistic, right? There's been too much fucking tragedy in his life lately. "My name's Sami, by the way."

The barista cracks a smile. "I think I liked 'half-sweet vanilla' better."

"Is that how you like all your clients?"

"Not many worth liking."

"I am, though, right?" Sami leans an elbow on the counter, grinning. "Come on, you can tell me what you really think."

"I think you're pretty sure of yourself," the other guy replies. But he glances back at Sami before going to take drink orders from two middle-aged women who just walked in the door, and that secretive little smile is still on his lips when he pulls boxes of tea down from an upper shelf.

Sami thinks, to hell with it, he's barely concentrating on his reading as it is. Grabbing his books, he abandons his window seat and moves to the counter. It's Saturday. Most people in this area, apparently, have better things to do than drink coffee and power through classical literature, so business is slow.

The barista walks by him on the other side of the counter, drying a cup with a white dishtowel.

"You never told me your name," Sami says over his battered copy of the Poetics.

There's a long pause, followed by the clink of chinaware against the counter. The barista folds his towel and puts it aside, a wary look on his face. "Mesut," he replies. Then, "It wasn't supposed to be an insult or anything, you know? Some people are confident."

"No offense taken." Sami dog-ears a page. "Seriously. I get it all the time."

"Then maybe you're doing something wrong."

Sami laughs, Mesut returns the smile, and Aristotle is all but forgotten until closing time. 

He finds the words for his thesis, eventually, along with the rest of his paper (Loew still refuses to give him full marks, but does pronounce himself "quite impressed" with the overall essay and refers Sami to Dr. Mourinho for further research). More importantly, though, between cups of coffee and paragraphs on tragic heroism, Sami finds that Mesut hides a brilliant smile behind that customary frown. He finds that Mesut likes video games and music. That he's bilingual. That he opted to work at his brother's electronics store instead of going to college. He finds that they both love football. Mesut wants to visit Spain someday and go to a Barcelona match. Sami informs him that they all have bad hair and ducks when Mesut snaps the dishtowel in his general direction.

On Friday night, Sami waits outside by the door while Mesut closes up the shop. The first drops of snow have begun to fall. Sami stretches his hand in front of him and watches the snowflakes melt in his palm. His phone buzzes: a text from Kathrin. _Got any plans tomorrow nite? Txt me!!_ Tomorrow is February 14th. Sami snaps his phone shut.

When Mesut appears around the corner, having come out from the back door, there's already a light dusting of white in his hair. Unthinking, Sami reaches out to brush it away. Mesut hunches his shoulders, hands in the pockets of his jeans.

"Do you—" Sami starts to ask.

"I can walk myself home," Mesut says. "But thanks."

_—want to get dinner tomorrow?_ Sami checks the rest of his sentence. He clears his throat. "Okay." Well. "See you, then."

Mesut gives him a faint smile. "Good night, Sami."

That night, he sleeps fitfully, his dreams full of snow and books and the lingering smell of coffee after the lights have been turned off.

The next day, Anna is there when Sami drops by the coffee shop just before dinnertime, and he remembers what Mesut said, exactly a week ago—that he was only covering for Anna while she was gone. Sami sits down at the counter, out of habit, but feels like he's missed another cue. Anna greets him with a wink and a latte with pink sprinkles on top, “Happy Valentine's Day, handsome.”

Sami forces a smile, drinks his coffee (much too sweet), and listens to her talk. Anna chatters away at him about her trip to Italy, asks him if he's missed her, if he's going to stay. _Sure,_ he wants to say, and _No, there's no point,_ and _I need to talk to him, can you give me his number._ This is not how stories are supposed to end.

"Hey," Anna says, and there's a worried frown on her lips, "are you okay? You look out of it."

Sami shakes his head. Tells her he's fine, but he can't stay, he has to catch up on his reading tonight. No romance for him; he's married to poetics and tragic philosophy. Moral luck. Human error. Circumstances and fucking tragedy.

-

_In a land of once upon a time, there was a prince who had his heart stolen by the leader of a rag-tag group of refugees. Their leader was a warrior but a pious man—a boy, really, barely old enough to shoulder the burdens cast upon him by fate, driven from shore to shore, tossed over land and sea. The prince received the travelers with kindness and sympathy, offering a common polity for their peoples, should the brave warrior choose to live with him. He did._

_Together, they built a great city beside the level sea. Together, they waged hundreds of campaigns against hostile kingdoms and barbaric tribes, and each was more successful than the last. The people lifted their praises to the skies. The kingdom grew rich with gold and jewels, spices and silks and finely carved instruments of wood, swift horses and beautiful slave girls with night-black eyes. But neither the prince nor the warrior ever took any girl for himself, wanting nothing of that shallow seduction, for in all the bards' tales through all the ages of the world, never has there been a love to eclipse the legendary truth of theirs._

-

For days now, he's been hearing whispered rumors of bankruptcy, bribery, the factory sold for two crates of tequila and a shipment of AK-47s from Spain. Sami doesn't put much stock in rumor anymore. Gossip is cheap, and the part-time prostitutes who spread them are cheaper still. Everyone's got a handful of the former to share, and there's more than enough of the latter to go around. Sami keeps a revolver in the inside pocket of his jacket to keep away the worst aspects of both. This is how things are in a desperate world.

He comes home in the evenings at just past eight, six days a week. On Sundays, those who still believe in the state's savior god go to worship. Sami spends the time working in the street-cleaning crews. Cash is cash, and with the steep rents and the stinginess of the factory owner's wife, every coin counts. 

He used to go to prayers, eight-thirty to ten on Friday evenings, though the neighbors whispered about it behind his back. It was the faith of his fathers, and Sami used to pray with his family, back when they were still together. He can no longer recall his father's face, but he remembers collecting bottle caps with his mom, helping her string them together to decorate the bare walls of their cramped little apartment. They've always been poor, but they were happy back then, he thinks.

Now, on Fridays, he comes back from work with a measure of rationed grain in his lunch pail, along with whatever produce he's managed to haggle off the sellers in the marketplace. This week, whispers of doom and unemployment aside, his luck's not been bad; it's the middle of February, but he managed to buy a string of carrots. Rani's favorite.

His brother is sitting up in bed when Sami gets home, scraps of old newspapers scattered across his threadbare coverlet. 

"Hey." He sets the pail down beside the old gas stove, goes to give Rani a hug. "Feeling better than this morning, I see."

Rani smiles for him. "I'm making swans for mom and dad." He holds up one of the misshapen paper birds, its wings covered in the ink of state propaganda and news. "I'll make a boat for Denni later. Boats are okay to make for living people, Lukas said."

"When was Lukas here?"

"He came over earlier to show me the boat pattern, like he promised. He said boats are for carrying wishes that you want returned. Birds don't come back, see, so they're okay for memorials; but boats bring people back."

Sami doesn't say that he doubts any boat can bring Denni back now; it's been three years, and their brother is either dead or too busy trying to survive to care about what's left of his family. No one lasts long in the work gangs. Thieves are shot on sight. There aren't that many options for a young boy with no family and no education. But Rani still lives in hope, so Sami just asks, "What was Lukas doing, home so early?"

Rani smooths a crease in tattered square sheet. "I think he lost his job again."

"So what else is new."

"He's been in a funk. He said he's thinking of moving."

Sami snorts. "And where would he go? Shacking up with Bastian is the best thing to have ever happened to him." He shakes his head. "Anyway, I got carrots. You feel like soup, or you want it with the rice?"

Rani pretends to think for a moment. "Soup," he declares solemnly. "I like carrot soup."

They both know that's a lie, but soup lasts longer, and water, at least, is still something that they can afford on a regular basis. Sami ruffles his brother's hair, "You just sit tight, I won't be a minute," and takes the pail down to the communal pump to wash the vegetables.

There's no line at the pump today, which is strange, until Sami notices that the price has gone up again. He thinks of walking the six blocks to the next pump—that's probably where half the neighborhood's gone, to save a coin or two—but, no, Rani is waiting. It's supposed to snow on Sunday; maybe he can work longer than usual, clearing the street of ice and debris.

He spots the boy out of the corner of his eye as he pays the fee and starts turning the lever to fill his pail. In the yellow streetlight, the boy looks about Rani's age, maybe a little older. Scrawny, dressed decently enough—though that shirt can't be doing much to keep him warm in this weather. Large eyes, dark hair. A slight cant to his hips that tells Sami all he needs to know as the boy walks closer, one hand behind his back.

Sami spares him a glance but keeps his attention on the pump; the meter runs down fast. 

"Not interested," he says when the boy hovers beside him, staring at the pocket from where Sami drew the coins to pay for the pump. "Take your business elsewhere, kid."

The kid doesn't leave. Instead, he rests one hand on Sami's elbow, tracing a delicate line up his arm. Persistent. The meter runs out. Sami sighs and turns toward the boy, "Look—"

Faster than he can blink, the kid darts around him, grabs the pail, and is running off in the opposite direction. Sami curses and thanks his own wariness that he saw this one coming. Half a step behind, and he wouldn't have caught up; the boy is fast. He catches the kid by the arm and kicks the legs out from under him. Water sloshes over his feet. The pail clatters to the ground.

The boy falls on his backside, raises one arm as if that can protect him now. A streetlamp illuminates the fear in his eyes. Sami already has his revolver drawn, finger on the trigger, when that gaze hits him—checks his rage. A chill wind numbs his ankles through his waterlogged shoes. The boy stays where he fell—resigned. There are bags under his eyes, Sami notes; the tight fit of his clothing reveals how thin he is beneath the t-shirt and jeans.

Thieves are shot on sight. There's no place for charity in a desperate world.

"Please," the boy whispers when Sami continues to hesitate, "please. Don't. One bullet's enough. Please don't."

Something twists in his gut. The boy thinks he's contemplating ways to draw out his death, make his suffering go on. As if living in this hell weren't already enough.

He puts the gun away. "Get out of here."

The boy stares at him, but doesn't move.

"Go," Sami says. "Go!"

The boy scrambles to his feet and ducks down the nearest alleyway, glancing back only once. Sami listens until the echo of his footsteps fade. He picks up the pail. The carrots are a bit more battered than before, but otherwise unharmed. He walks back to the pump, pays a second time, then heads home in the wind-bitten dark.

He makes soup for dinner, helps Rani fold a curved paper boat, kisses his brother goodnight before rolling out his own pallet on the floor. He dreams of dark eyes and family prayers, and the morning finds him awake with a nameless word on his tongue.

-

_In an existence where he is not, you run and run until your legs submit to the lull of gravity. You've always been running, ever since you were little. Running, racing, diving, chasing; jumping, falling, hurting—the wind in your eyes and heart in your throat, a faint conviction that if only you ran fast enough wings would grow from your outstretched arms, some miracle to finally restore the hollowness in your chest, empty like air between your palms. But nothing ever makes your heart beat fast enough, nothing makes your thoughts sound loud enough. And in the end when they ask you what you wanted, what you thought life should have been, you can only tell them what it was not: enough._

-

In a kinder world, things go differently when Anna-Maria moves back to Germany.

Cristiano is the first one to know, after Sami, and Mesut regrets this decision almost immediately when Marcelo runs up to him, all hugs and consolation and, "If you ever need to talk to somebody, and I mean ever, like, anytime at all, okay?" This is quickly followed by Angel asking him what's the matter, then Gonzalo inquiring if he's all right, so of course Sergio has to know what's up, too. And just like that, before the day is out, the entire team—along with half the coaching staff—know that poor Mesut is heartbroken because his bitch of a girlfriend left him and went back to Germany, taking with her half the furniture and the lone tube of toothpaste in the medicine cabinet, leaving not even the chew toys for their month-old pet chihuahua.

The last time Mesut checked, he doesn't have a pet. Also, he really hates gossip.

He also really hates scheming teammates who are fluent enough in Spanish to come up with The Great and Wonderful Plan to Cheer Mesut Up. In the true spirit of fighting fire with fire, The Great and Wonderful Plan to Cheer Mesut Up equates more or less to Let's Set Him Up on Blind Dates Until He Finds the True Love of His Life. 

Mesut would really like to know where they've been getting relationship advice from. He's starting to suspect telenovelas. 

The first ambush takes place at Marcelo's house. All the usual faces are there when Mesut arrives, but there's also the conspicuous addition of a blonde wearing a slinky dress more suited to dinner parties than a mid-week barbecue. His teammates spend the afternoon not-so-subtly trying to push the two of them together. Mesut concentrates his efforts on plastering himself to Sami's side instead.

"—not his type," he overhears Sergio saying to Sami the next day at practice. "Maybe not curvy enough?" The defender demonstrates the meaning of his words with emphatic hand gestures, just in case Sami didn't get it. Mesut turns around and goes to warm up with Angel instead. 

"So, I'm not unhappy," he tries to tell the Argentine as they stretch together. "Everything, it's good, no?"

Angel pats him on the shoulder. "Yes, yes, I understand. It's okay."

A week later, Mesut walks into a restaurant on an invitation from Sergio, and the maitre d' directs him to a booth containing a brunette with dark almond-shaped eyes and a note written in Spanish: _Enjoy your date!!_ The girl is French. Mesut stumbles over his words as he apologizes to her in broken English that he's sorry, waste of her time, his friends are bad people, etc. He starts refusing all dinner and party invitations after that.

Then one evening Cris shows up at his doorstep with a girl named Jamila, introduces her as a friend of his (which, Mesut later discovers, is a complete and total lie), then ducks back outside to "take a very urgent call." Which lasts for an hour. While Jamila sits in Mesut's living room and compliments his _impeccable_ taste in interior design. 

The next girl tell him how much she _loves_ music, all kinds of music, isn't it so wonderful to have things in common to talk about? The girl after that sends him pictures of herself posing with video game posters. The girl after _that_ flutters her eyelashes as if she has a nervous tic and drops a line about her preference for "Turkish delights"—which Mesut really would rather not think about ever again, thank you very much.

"You have to tell them to stop," he moans to Sami one day, sprawled over his friend's couch. "Because you know what's tomorrow? Valentine's Day. I don't even want to know what they're cooking up. It's been _months_. You'd think they'd get tired of this eventually, but no-o-o. God save us all."

"Poor baby." Sami pats him on the head as he returns from the kitchen with a bottle of water for Mesut, and cold tea for himself. "You're just so _miserable_ all the time. They're only trying to help you learn to love again."

"I can tell when you're mocking me, you know."

"See? You're all cranky without somebody to hold you at night."

Mesut mumbles an insult he overheard once in the locker room. Sami raises an eyebrow, "Oh, I'd love to, but I don't think you even know what that means," and Mesut throws a cushion at him. 

"But hey," Sami says, setting the cushion aside, "if they're bothering you that much, you can always crash here or something. Not that I endorse hiding, but until you work up the guts to tell them to just knock it off."

Mesut drops his head against his folded arms, groaning. "They won't listen to me. They think I don't know what's good for me."

"Yeah, well, you know what he says about mother knowing best."

"Cristiano Ronaldo is not my mother."

"Thank god for that."

"You could be, though."

Sami chucks the cushion back at him. "That's just getting incestuous."

Mesut starts to laugh before he realizes it doesn't make any sense. "Huh?"

"Huh what?"

"What you said."

"What did I say?"

"You said." Mesut sighs. Sami's in one of _those_ moods. "Never mind. Can I really sleep here tonight? I promise I won't bother you."

"Sure." Sami stands up, waves his hand in the general direction of the kitchen. "Help yourself to food and whatever. I'm going out for a bit. I'll be back later."

Mesut tries on a pitiable look. "What if they try to kidnap me while you're gone?"

"I don't know. Call the police?"

"Some mother you are."

"Like I said, I'd rather not be, if it's all the same to you." Sami ruffles his hair again as he moves to leave. Mesut takes a swipe at the offending gesture and catches Sami's wrist; Sami pinches his thumb in retaliation. "Brat. Try not to get into trouble before I'm back."

Mesut rolls over on the couch and listens to the sound of footsteps receding, the click of the door, the faint hum of a car pulling out of the driveway. His phone buzzes. Angel. _hey u free 2nite???_ He winces, turns off his phone without bothering to respond.

It's quiet in the house without Sami. Mesut channel surfs for a bit, but there's nothing he particularly wants to watch; most of it, he can't even understand. A good night's sleep sounds more appealing anyway. 

He half-hoped there might still be a change of clothes here from the last time he slept over, but the drawers in the guest room are empty, so he steals some pajamas from Sami's closet. The t-shirt looks like a garbage bag on him, but otherwise, they're more or less the same size. He snags Sami's ipod as well, before remembering that he doesn't like Sami's taste in music. But by then he's already in bed and nodding off, and besides, he's had worse things happen to him than falling asleep to Sami's weird alternative rock.

It might account for his dreams of oceans filled with jello, talking clouds, and someone holding him firmly by the hand. 

He wakes up to sunlight peeking through the curtains, his nose bumping against a box of chocolates nestled on the pillow beside his head. There's a vase on the nightstand, half-filled with water; the dozen roses are blushing red.

Mesut pads to the kitchen, still wearing Sami's t-shirt, the box of chocolates in one hand and rubbing his eyes with the other. 

Sami glances up from his newspaper. "Hey."

"Morning." Mesut stifles a yawn. He blinks at the clock on the kitchen wall. Too early, his brain concludes after a moment. He turns back to Sami. "You didn't have to get me Valentine's things to cheer me up. I'm not unhappy. Seriously."

"I know." Sami turns a page. "That's not why I bought them."

"Oh. Okay." It takes him a moment to process that. "Wait. Then— Wait. Why?"

Sami puts the newspaper down, stands up, and gets a bottle of water from the fridge. "As I understand it, Valentine's Day is the day you give chocolates and roses to the person that you like." He twists and untwists the bottle cap. "And, you know, maybe they don't return your feelings, but— You know. You have to take your chances sometime."

Mesut's brain is slowly starting to get up to its normal speed—which, granted, still isn't terribly fast, but. He walks over to Sami and pries the water bottle from his hand, sets it down beside the newspaper and the chocolate. Sami's lips set in a straight line, like when he's angry—or scared. 

"Look, sorry," he says and starts to turn away. Mesut catches him by the wrist.

"What, you scared of me getting mad about this?"

Sami doesn't look up. "Aren't you?"

"Yes," Mesut says, and Sami's expression tightens further, "because I can't believe it took you _this long_ , you fucker."

The stunned look on Sami's face is probably mirrored on his own, he thinks, but more importantly Sami doesn't step away when Mesut crowds closer and pulls him in by the lapels of his shirt, Sami's lips are soft when Mesut kisses him, and the arm that circles his waist is bracing, firm. 

"Shit," Sami says when they break part, and, "Um," and, "Wow, okay."

"Mmm," Mesut agrees, tracing the line of Sami's jaw with his thumb.

"Remind me to listen to Sergio more often."

"Okay," Mesut says, before the words have fully registered. "Wait, _what?_ "

Sami at least has the decency to look sheepish. "Happy Valentine's Day? And, uh, keep your phone off for a while. Friendly advice. Stop staring at me like that. You said you weren't mad—"

"I'm trying to decide if I want to punch you or kiss you again."

"I prefer option B, if that makes any difference."

"Shut up," Mesut tells him, but complies.


End file.
